How is it spelled correctly, and is it separated "allegedly" by commas or not in the sentence? Is it a particle or a union? What words did it come from? We will answer these very simple questions in this article. And we will give many examples.
Origin and meaning of the word
Etymological dictionaries indicate that the word "supposedly" came about by merging the currently unused union "yako" (meaning "like", "as if") and the particle of the subjunctive mood "would".
Hence its meaning - the presumption, unreliability or imaginary of the reported information. Of course, from the point of view of the one who says the phrase.
In a sentence, "supposedly" can play the role of a conjunction or a particle. From the answer to the question - is it a union or a particle, it depends whether it is highlighted "supposedly" with commas or not in the sentence. Consider both of these cases.
Union
To begin with, we note that the union itself cannot be an independent word, it does not act as a member of the sentence, it cannot be replaced by another word with an independent meaning. Its task is to connect two ormore simple sentences as part of a complex one.
As for the union "supposedly", it not only connects, corresponding in functionality to the subordinating union "what", but also gives a personal attitude (doubt) of the utterer of the phrase to the reliability of the information being reported and to the person who speaks about it.
Conclusion: we put a comma before "supposedly" if this word is a union, and it makes a subordinating connection in the sentence.
Example: "Often such people think their happiness has been stolen from them."
Compare: "Often such people think that happiness has been stolen from them."
Or: "The teacher at the lecture told us that the word "coffee" is now allowed to be used in the neuter gender."
Particle
In Russian, a particle is called a service part of speech, designed to give various emotional shades to the statement, as well as serving to form certain forms of the word.
The particle "allegedly" may express the speaker's incredulous attitude towards information or its source, or may be uncertainty about its reliability. In this case, the particle "allegedly" does not require any isolation or punctuation.
Here are some examples:
"The other day I read this supposedly interesting book of yours."
"A cold wind came up, allegedly brought snow, which immediately melted."
"Supposedly they were given the opportunity to work, but in reality these people were simply made slaves."
"Travel notes allegedly about America" (the title of the book by M. Zadornov).
Please note that the particle "allegedly" most often emotionally colors exactly the word to which it adjoins:
"Supposedly this is the literary norm."
Compare with other options: "This is supposedly the literary norm." Or: "This is supposedly the literary norm."
Here's another sentence with the word "supposedly": "You, of course, heard about his alleged affair with Countess Maretskaya?".
And this question, posed in this way, takes on a completely different meaning: "You, of course, heard about his affair with the alleged Countess Maretskaya?".
Other occasions
In some cases, there may be a false impression that the word "supposedly" is a union that requires isolation. It is important to learn to understand what is in front of you. Even if the sentence with the word "supposedly" consists of several simple sentences connected into a complex one using an allied or allied connection.
For example: "We were named people who allegedly have what we need."
Here "allegedly" is a particle, adjacent to the verb "to eat" and is part of the subordinate part of a complex sentence.
Other examples: "They say that the verses of a real poet supposedly should be understood by everyone, and punctuation in them is completely unnecessary."
The particle "supposedly" is adjacent to the predicative adverb (sometimescalled a short adjective) "should".
"Inhabitants of the village of P altsevo say they allegedly saw something in the sky that night, but what exactly it was is not specified."
The particle "allegedly" (precisely the particle, since in this case it does not replace the union "what") is adjacent to the verb "saw". Commas, of course, are not separated.
"My friend said it needed a comma, but I don't believe him."
"Allegedly" is separated by a comma, since it is a subordinating relationship, replacing the conjunction "what".
"He says supposedly I have to take medicine to get well."
And here we have a complex sentence connected by a subordinating link, consisting of one main and one subordinate clause. The subordinate clause is complicated by another subordinate clause. The word "supposedly" in the first clause is functionally equivalent to the conjunction "what", and the comma after it is used to isolate the second clause.
So the main part of this compound sentence is "he says". First subordinate clause: "supposedly I have to take medicine." Second clause: "to get well".
The sentence could be structured differently: "He says that I must take medicine to get well." In this case, a comma is not required after the "supposedly" union.
In any case, the following should be noted: by itself, let's call the word "supposedly" a unionor a particle, it is never separated by commas on both sides, since it is not introductory.
All these points must be taken into account in order to understand whether the word "supposedly" is separated by commas or not in a particular sentence.
Spelling and style
"Allegedly" - how is this word spelled? Actually, only the vowel of the second syllable - "o" can cause difficulty in spelling. But we won’t be able to find a test word for this vowel, so you just need to remember the correct option, or when writing each time, mentally go back to the etymological components of “supposedly” already mentioned above: “like” + “would”.
There is a recommendation of this kind. To clarify how "supposedly" is spelled, you can mentally compare it with the synonymous word "like" - in both cases, the unstressed vowel in the middle of the word is "o".
When using this word in speech or text, remember that it refers to the conversational style. And although there are no restrictions on the use of "allegedly", for example, in an official business style of speech, this word should be used in an informal setting, since, as already mentioned, it has an emotionally expressive coloring with a dismissive, disapproving or ironic assessment.
Synonyms for "supposedly"
There are quite a few words that are synonymous with the word "supposedly": "there was a rumor", "heard", "it is believed", "they say", "it seems","kabyt" (colloquial), "as if", "as if", "as if", "as if", "like".
Unlike "supposedly", many of these words and phrases are introductory and should be punctuated.
Examples of these words:
"it is believed that all ages are submissive to love", "and I heard you were promoted", "it seems that he came", "it seems to me that I am flying after the wind".
